


Brent goes shopping

by BellisPerennis



Category: Daughter of the Lilies (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 15:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12535360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellisPerennis/pseuds/BellisPerennis
Summary: The summer solstice festivities are near and Brent needs to get a gift for one of his team members.





	Brent goes shopping

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this story a while ago on tumblr, but wanted to give it a "proper" home, where I can publish other stories more easily.

“Is tradition”, explained Orrig as Thistle added her own token into the inconspicuous looking leather satchel: “Ve do it every solstice. As new one in team you can choose drafting order.”

Hesitantly Thistle looked around the group of fellow adventurers and then chose the order that she thought of as the most neutral one existing: “Um… alphabetically?”

“That makes Brent first”, Orrig declared unceremoniously and hold the satchel in his direction.

Brent used one hand to cover his eyes and grabbed with the other one into the bag.

Highly concentrated he shuffled around before he decided which one to pick out. He would have never admitted it openly, but this whole affair made him anxious; he would have no trouble with Lyra or Orrig – but Thistle? Thistle was his worst case scenario.

He could imagine the secret gift exchange vividly in his mind; with Lyra it would go something like “Oh you bought me a bottle of the fancy stuff! That’s exactly what I wanted! Thanks Brent!” followed by a hearty pat on his back. And Orrig would get a box of his favorite sweets and say “Good choice. I like this present” before giving him a hearty pat on the back. But Thistle? When trying to imagine giving her a present, his mind only conjured an image of chirping crickets. He had absolutely no idea what to get for her! So no matter what, he had to pick one of the others.

“How much time do you need to draft, Brent?”, Lyra asked annoyed, so he swallowed and finally grabbed one.

“Great demonstration of patience”, he retorted, while Lyra simply let her hand swiftly dive in and out of the bag in one flowing motion.

“Patience, my <censored>”, she returned: “I don’t need to have patience with people who deliberately waste my time.”

“Enough!”, interjected Orrig and made his own pick: “This solstice tradition, so be nice.”

He gave the satchel over to Thistle who took the last token.

Brent watched her interested as she found out who her secret solstice gift receiver was; did her expression change?

He realized that he hadn’t found out his draft yet and looked at his clenched fist, where the secret still lay inside.

“Ve vill split up now and meet again in four hours at inn for traditional solstice dinner. Don’t forget to stay vithin price limit”, Orrig said and the group split up.

Brent deliberately let himself fall a bit more behind, prolonging the moment before he found out who he got. It was not like he disliked Thistle or anything; but he liked the solstice tradition too much and didn’t want to ruin the mood by disappointing the newest addition of the group. But he probably had no problem, the chances totally were in his favor, the more he thought rationally about it, the less it seemed possible that he got her of all things.

Unconsciously he held his breath when he opened his fist to unveil the pick. A long sight followed.

 

Nervously Brent scanned the sign of the shop before him, and scratched his arm uncomfortably. He could do this. It was not his kind of store, but he wasn’t some dumb insecure teenager. Compared to the REAL dangers and challenges he faced daily as part of his work, this was… still scary.

‘Don’t be a sissy elf!’, he spurned himself mentally and went into the shop with grim determination.

He just needed to grab some random appropriate book and everything would be alright, wouldn’t it?

Inside the bookstore there were myriads of books crammed into overflowing shelves, with the sole store salesdwarf sitting at a tiny looking desk looking bored. But that immediately changed, as he (or she? One could never be completely sure with those) noticed him. His face lit up brighter than Wu’s scales in a dark night and he happily went into selling mode: “Welcome to ‘Books, books, books!’ the best and sole bookstore in town! What can I help you with?”

The dwarf came over to him, surprisingly speedy and stopped uncomfortably close to him, smiling at him with a grin wide enough to scare a lesser Drath away.

“Erm…”, Brent stammered intimidated: “I want a book.”

“Great!”, the salesdwarf exclaimed, without a hint of sarcasm in his voice: “We have those! Do you have a certain one in mind?”

“Errr… Well..” Brent hesitated because he felt so utterly uncomfortable at this place. It was not like he couldn’t read at all, but his experience with reading till this day had been less than stellar. He was never able to get the appeal of it and the few times he gave this another chance had made him feel inadequate. Somehow lesser. Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The stupid half-orc, that wasn’t even able to read out words like extraordinarr… eckstraor… special words without stumbling over his own tongue.

“We have books by R. G. Wells and also books about building wells, the whole line by B. A. Cons’Tructor, to be precise. Does that sound like the kind of reading you are looking for?”, the dwarf inquired.

“Um… no?”

The dwarf’s brow began to twitch slightly, barely noticeable: “How can I be of service then?”

“I’m looking for”, Brent started, unsure how to go on. “…a book. A good one!”

“That’s great”, the seller repeated affirmatively: “So, _what_ do you want to read?”

“Oh… no, no. It’s not for me, but for my colleague!”

“Ahhh”, the dwarf began to nod appreciatively, “so, what does your colleague read?”

“I… don’t know exactly.”

More brow twitching. “Does your colleague have any special interests? What is his or her occupation? Do you know any of the books he or she read?”

“Um… _She_ seems to like flowers a lot. And magic. She’s a mage.”

“Perfect, I can work with this information!”

The dwarf whirled around and picked unerringly books out of the shelves. With a staple higher than his own head he returned to Brent and set it gently down on a stool. He took the first book of the pile and held it in the most scenic way possible, so that the cover was in perfect sight.

It showed a plain, yet beautiful, young maiden in a long flowing dress, who lay in he arms of a handsome and surprisingly ripped mage, as indicated by his long impressive staff and strategically torn robes. Both were surrounded by perfectly red roses, which glistened. Crowning this was the books title; which was to embarrassing for Brent to notice.

“This book is extremely popular with our female readership”, the dwarf explained: “And it has elements that perfectly cover the topics you mentioned.”

“I don’t think that’s the best choice”, Brent said full of doubt: “I don’t think she is very girly… I can’t imagine her being into typical feminine stuff. You now, cooking and fashion and… you know what I mean. She’s more the smart type.”

“No problem!”

The dwarf gently put the book down and picked up the next one. It had no illustration on its cover, just the title “Pride and Maguerites”.

“This one is a bit more… intellectual, a classical story, so to speak. Still very much appreciated by our female clientele.”

Brent scratched his chin: “I’m not sure. Can you tell me a bit what this book is exactly about?”

“Oh, it’s basically about a young aspiring woman, that meets this young suitor who she at first utterly refuses-”

“Pass!”, interjected Brent and underlined his point with a swiping gesture: “I don’t think you got it. She’s like _really_ smart. _Smart_ smart, not _pretend_ smart.”

“Okay, okay.” The salesdwarf took this book and several others from the staple: “If you don’t like belletristic, we still have a nice selection of books with a more scientific approach. This here is by the way a personal favorite of mine.” He gave a book over to Brent, who read its title “Thoughts on taxonomy of the plants by Carolus Linnaeus”. Turning a few pages he quickly realized what was wrong with it: “Were are the pictures?”

“Well, not every book needs to be illustrated, Sir.”

Brent gave the book back, not without visibly wrinkling his nose: “It’s a present. Without pictures it just looks so dull. I don’t want to give something like this, in the end she thinks she is dull herself!”

The dwarf almost sighed, but regained his composition fast enough. He took another book from his staple: “Okay, perhaps this one might be more to your likening. It has some very nice diagrams in it and absolutely no romantic content. And only a smart person versed in the arcane arts would get and appreciate it.”

Brent looked doubting at the dragon-like insignia at the front.

“I don’t exaggerate when I claim, that every decent mage’s library should have its own exemplar of the ‘Assorted Essays by Master Hym’.”

Brent shook his head: “But then she probably has already got her own one, won’t she? I can’t give her a book she already owns, can I?”

“Fine” the dwarf replied and took the bottom book from the pile, which was quite thick and heavy: “I doubt she’d have an exemplar of this book, because it was publishes just a week ago.”

He presented the book to Brent, who inspected the cover. The title was ‘Plants – what they tell us’ illustrated with a lovely thistle. He turned a few pages and he immediately liked it; there were detailed drawings of plants and charts everywhere and still enough written text, so that it would last a while even for Thistle. He couldn’t suppress a smile: “Now _that’s_ a viable choice. How much?”

“Oh, it’s really cheap, all things considered.”

“Ho much?”, Brent asked again, while a bad feeling started crawling around in his stomach.

“A very low price for such a quality book, just look at all these illustrations!”

“How. Much?”

“Two point five. Almost a steal.”

Brent got his purse out and picked three coins out.

At that sight the dwarf started chuckling: “Is that a joke? Two point five means two hundred and fifty coins!”

“What?! No, that’s way too expensive! I’m on a budget.”

The dwarf couldn’t suppress a sight anymore. He reached into his pocket and looked onto his pocket watch: “Please, just listen, Sir. You could tell me how much money you want to spend and I’ll look if I find something suitable. It’s almost four o’clock now and I want to close in time to celebrate the solstice with my family.”

Brent turned pale: “It’s that late already?! I have to go!” He turned around in place and darted out of the shop. Quickly he ran to the inn, but not without making a quick stop at a market stand with a variety of colorful drapery. Women liked fabric, didn’t they?

“Hello I need something for a solstice present!”, he announced immediatly and hold out his complete budget.

“Oh, okay”, the seller responded mildly confused because Brent disturbed her during packing up for the evening. “Do you want something specific?”

“Just something solstice-y! And please wrap it, it’s a present!”

The seller grabbed some fold-up kerchief-thingy and put it neatly onto some packing paper.

“Please hurry, I don’t have time left!”

The seller swiftly wrapped up the textile and returned to Brent a definitely misshaped package.

Brent grabbed it: “Thanks, great, here!” He dropped the coins into her hand and ran faster than a really slow arrow from Lyra to the inn.

The big city clock was sounding the last chimes of the hour, when he reached his destination. He went into the building, where the rest of the team already sat around a big table on which the first course of the solstice dinner was waiting.

“I’m on time!”, Brent wheezed, gasping for breath. He sat down on the only free chair.  

“You are!”, Lyra acknowledged and grinned: “Good that Orrig does not like us to bet, otherwise I would be a few coins poorer now.”

“Stop it”, Orrig interjected: “Ve now solve the secret gift exchange. Thistle, choose order.”

The attention shifted and the hooded mage seemed to shrink a little bit: “.. em, alphabetically again,  please?”

“Is good”, Orrig nodded and put a package onto the table and pushed it over to Brent.

The quarter orc looked at it and then started unwrapping. He found a piece of high quality sharpening leather inside. “Oh… thanks.” He needed a few moments to process the gift, but then he smiled: “I can definitely put that to good use. Thanks!”

“I vought so.”

Lyra cleared her throat: “I’m next!”

She put a big bottle on the table and angled herself on her chair to look sideways: “Lyra! I got you!”

She turned directly around: “Really? Who would have thought, what a surprise!”

Turning back: “I got some of your favorite brandy!”

And again: “Aww, how nice, it’s _'Le fancy stuffe’_. You always know exactly what to get for me!”

She grinned and unstopped the bottle with her teeth to treat herself to the first sip.

“People could get themselves?”, Thistle asked, mildly confused: “Doesn’t that kinda undermine the premise of a secret gift exchange?”

“Is part of tradition”, Orrig explained, while shrugging with his shoulders.

“Okay”, Thistle replied and put a small package on the table and pushed it to him: “I.. well… hope you like it, it’s not very special, but I really tried to find something nice… and well.”

The orc opened the packet and found a few balls of green wool and a crotchet hook.

“I heard you like to knit, but then stopped for some reason and so I thought that you maybe would enjoy crocheting?”

“Is good choice”, he replied: “I like this present.” Followed by a light, but not unhearty, pat on her back.

Now all eyes wandered over to Brent. He needed a moment, but then realized: “Oh it’s my turn!”

He threw the misshapen package over to Thistle, who utterly failed at catching and dropped it onto the ground.

“Oh, sorry!”. Brent nervously cleared his throat. Oh, what had he done? He were so fixated on arriving on time, that he didn’t take great care in choosing a present in the end.

‘Great way to ruin the mood, Brent’, he thought to himself: ‘This may be the only thing you’re actually competent at.”

The mage meanwhile carefully unwrapped the paper and gracefully unfolded the fabric. It was a shawl, slightly transparent in the shine of the inn’s light installation and intricately embroidered with little flowers and butterflies. A few moments she did nothing, but then she sniffled.

‘Oh dammit!’, Brent thought, but Thistle suddenly blurted out: “This is soo pretty! One of the nicest things I ever got!” This was followed by an impromptu hug; which she held for around three seconds, before she realized what she was doing. “Oh, I’m sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry!” She unhugged Brent immediately and jumped up: “I… I… think I need a moment. Alone!” She half ran, half stumbled to the outside, while the rest of the group just locked after her.

Finally Lyra took the word: “Great done, Brent. You made her cry.”

“Shut up, Lyra!”, he returned sharply and folded his arms. But all he could think about was how soft and nice and warm that hug from Thistle had been…

As far as disappointments went, he wouldn’t have minded a repetition of this particular one.

**Author's Note:**

> Something that might not be immediatly obvious is, that the books the dwarf suggests (except the first one) are all ones I think Thistle would like to read. And that was before the comic revealed her shipping side :)
> 
> Constructive critic is very much appreciated, I'm not a native English speaker.


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